| ::memetics:: | |
Memetics is the idea first proposed by noted biologist Richard Dawkins, that ideas, ideologies, fads, etc. can act like genetic replicators in a "meme-pool", propagating themselves between human hosts, in a survival-of-the-fittest battle between competing ideas. A meme can invade a human host, latch onto other memes to develop into a larger meme-complex, and alter the behavior of its host so as to better propagate itself. Some are short lived, such as quirks of speech, urban legends, or fashions, others are much longer lasting, such as catholicism.
Something like religious fundamentalism, that encourages proselytizing, enacts a mental carrot & stick system (heaven, hellfire & brimstone), has a very solid set of dogma that even for most carriers manages to prevent the function of logic and rational thinking, and carries a strict moral code that marginalizes non-believers that insinuates itself into politics can easily out-replicate memes found in science and academia, because of the time it takes for those to be successfully acquired by a person, regardless of their correlation to an objective reality.